Pirates pound Reds to complete sweep

The Pirates scored five runs in the first and cruised to a 14-10
victory over the Reds on Sunday to complete a three-game sweep.

Jason Bay continued his personal destruction of Cincinnati
pitchers, going 3-for-5 with a homer, three RBI and three runs
scored, giving him totals of eight hits, eight RBI, six runs and
two homers in the three-game set.

"I'm not saying I'm dying to get here but this is a good
hitter's park," Bay said. "We struggled coming here but there
are hits here that you might not get somewhere else that improve
your outlook for your next at bat. You hope it carries over."

Bay fouled off six two-strike pitches before blasting a
three-run home run on the 12th pitch.

"Actually it is easier to concentrate early in the game than it
is late in the game," Bay said. "You want to see all his
pitches. I fouled off some tough pitches. He (Saarloos) was
always one pitch from getting out of the inning because he's a
sinkerball pitcher."

"There isn't a better major league at-bat than the one Bay had
in the first inning," Pirates manager Jim Tracy said. "But
aside from that at-bat, we took some team at-bats. We took
pitches to allow runners to steal, we hit ground balls to
advance runners. The approach of the first five or six hitters
was exceptional. We didn't expand the strike zone. We were
going to have to add runs to win."

Pittsburgh jumped on Reds starter Kirk Saarloos (0-4), pounding
the converted reliever for five runs, five hits and two walks in
the opening frame. Saarloos was pulled before recording an
out.

The veteran sinkerballer was making just his second start of the
season after 20 appearances out of the bullpen. He fared
better in his first start, holding the Washington Nationals to
three runs and six hits in 5 1/3 innings to suffer a no
decision.

"It was a struggle. I was trying to stop the inning and never
did," Saarloos said. "I told Jerry that I'd work out of the
bullpen tomorrow. When you don't get any outs in the first
inning, you feel worse for the guys in the bullpen that have to
get 27 outs."

Saarloos' replacements did not fare much, as four relievers
combined to allow nine runs. The Pirates had five players record
multi-hit games, with 2006 National League batting champion
Freddy Sanchez driving in four runs with a pair of hits.

Cincinnati's hitters showed no quit, pounding out 15 hits and 10
runs, but could not compensate for the poor pitching.

Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Dunn hit back-to-back homers off
Pittsburgh starter Zach Duke (2-5), and the surprising power
surge of Alex Gonzalez continued with a solo blast in the sixth
- the 10th of the season for the light-hitting shortstop.

"Our guys never think they are out of a ballgame," Cincinnati
manager Jerry Narron said. "We could have rolled over but we
didn't."

Dunn's second homer of the game closed the gap to 11-9 in the
seventh, but the Pirates responded with three runs in the eighth
to put the game away.

Duke lasted five innings, yielding five runs - three earned -
and seven hits. Duke had an extra long bullpen session between
starts to iron out a mechanical pitching flaw.

"The consistency is not quite there yet," Duke said. "I can
focus on the positive pitches. I had three good innings and two
bad ones."

Just lasting five innings helped the Pirates, according to
Tracy.

"He was out of gas but I'll tell you what, to keep them
scoreless in the fifth inning in the manner he did allowed us to
save Matt Capps and (Domaso) Marte," Tracy said. "I didn't
want to send him out for the sixth or have the bullpen inherit a
mess rather than start the inning clean."

The Reds have lost six in a row to drop their record to a major
league-worst 18-33

NLAT CINCINNATI - SCORING UPDATESOLO HOME RUN BY CHAD MOELLER (1) TO LEFT WITH 0 OUT IN THE 8TH OFF JOHN GRABOW.CURRENT SCORE: PITTSBURGH 14, CINCINNATI 10DUE UP FOR CINCINNATI: G MAJEWSKI (.000, 0 HR, 0 RBI)

NLAT CINCINNATI - SCORING UPDATESOLO HOME RUN BY ALEX GONZALEZ (10) TO LEFT WITH 0 OUT IN THE 6TH OFF TONY ARMAS.CURRENT SCORE: PITTSBURGH 11, CINCINNATI 6DUE UP FOR CINCINNATI: C MOELLER (.250, 1-FOR-2)

NLAT CINCINNATI - SCORING UPDATESOLO HOME RUN BY EDWIN ENCARNACION (3) TO LEFT WITH 1 OUT IN THE 4TH OFF ZACH DUKE.CURRENT SCORE: PITTSBURGH 7, CINCINNATI 3DUE UP FOR CINCINNATI: A DUNN (.256, 1-FOR-1, RBI)